Chapter 3 explores platform-based cleaning services in Norway. It draws on a desk study and qualitative interviews to map working environment challenges associated with digitalized work arrangements in the Norwegian cleaning industry. The chapter investigates the platform company Vaskehjelp in particular, differentiating the platform model in the cleaning industry from other established work arrangements. The analysis shows that the platform model, which gives significant power to customers through the rating system, creates unpredictability in terms of work opportunities for cleaners, and that time management and stress are important work environment challenges facing cleaners. While working for digital platforms, the cleaners, furthermore, are still exposed to the OSH challenges that characterize the traditional cleaning industry, risks that can be exacerbated by the platforms’ employment model: Since the cleaners working for the platforms tend to be classified as self-employed contractors, they are generally not covered by the rights and protections that usually follow an employment relationship.
Chapter 4 analyses the case of Happy Helper, a domestic cleaning platform in Denmark. It is based on interviews with cleaners and management representatives, in addition to relevant documents, and finds that working for cleaning platforms can be economically insecure, physically demanding and mentally stressful. Furthermore, cleaners can feel isolated and invisible, inhibiting collective mobilization. They are exposed to both industry-specific OSH challenges and challenges emerging from the digitalized work environment, such as how much time the cleaners are allocated per task and their dependence of favourable evaluations from costumers. While they have a significant flexibility, the cleaners are under significant time pressure and often work overtime. Since they rely on positive customer reviews, the analysis shows, it can also be difficult for platform-based cleaners to require that the customer provide them with sufficient equipment.
Chapter 5 compares platform-based food delivery work in Denmark and Norway, analysing the case of Foodora, Just Eat and Wolt. It investigates the working environment challenges couriers face, in particular from the platforms’ algorithmic management. The chapter finds that in addition to being physically demanding and mentally exhausting, the couriers’ working environment is characterized by three main OSH risks: job and income insecurity, waiting time and time pressure, and harassment and unfair treatment. While these job characteristics are a result of the food delivery platforms’ algorithmic management and intraplatform algorithmic change, the effects are conditioned by the couriers’ employment model.
Chapter 6 also analyses platform-based food delivery, exploring the Finnish case through qualitative interviews couriers. The chapter investigates transparency, opaqueness, autonomy and agency as key features of platform-mediated gig work and platform workers’ work environment. It argues that while couriers are attracted to platforms by the flexibility and autonomy these work arrangements offer, they are also monitored and evaluated by the platforms – practices that limits their actual flexibility and autonomy. The chapter also shows how the couriers’ autonomy and agency is both enabled and inhibited by the transparency and opaqueness of the platforms’ arrangements: Certain aspects of the operation are made visible to the workers, allowing them to make informed and autonomous decisions, while other aspects remain opaque, creating both unpredictability and stress. It thus illustrates that the digitalization of work does not necessarily entail opaque forms of control but can also, under certain conditions, enable increased transparency. Although the platforms’ operations might be opaque, workers develop an understanding of how they function, enhancing their agency potential, giving rise to complex dynamics of transparency, opacity, autonomy and control.
Chapter 7 concludes this report by developing and presenting a risk factor framework for occupational safety and health, digitalization and forms of employment. The framework is based on the scoping review published at an earlier stage of this project, relevant international research, the empirical case studies and workshops with the Nordic labour inspectorates. The framework aims to show how OSH risks can be articulated through digitalization and across different forms of employment. It identifies and discusses seven risk factors: isolation, deskilling, worker turnover, piece-rate precarity and stress, reduced autonomy, control and surveillance and increased OSH fragmentation. The chapter also highlights regulatory challenges associated with occupational safety and health for the future of work in the Nordic countries.